Although a recent report by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that drunken driving incidents have fallen 30 percent in the past five years, officials in Russellville aren’t ready to confirm the same trend locally.

The CDC report came from a telephone survey of 210,000 U.S. adults who self-reported whether or not they had engaged in drinking and driving. One in 50 said they had done so at least once within the last month. Of those respondents, 60 percent said they had engaged in drinking and driving only once, but some said they did it daily, the Associated Press reported.

In Russellville, police documents totaling the number of Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) incidents annually since 2008 do show a slight decrease in DWI reports.

In 2008, the number of DWIs for the city was 165, slowly declining to 162 in 2009 and 156 in 2010. For the year 2011, a total of 133 DWI incidents have been recorded to date.

Russellville Police Department spokesman Joshua McMillian said although reports show numbers are slightly down, there is no substantial evidence people are drinking and driving less.

“I would not want to say that’s the trend here just because our numbers do show a decrease,” McMillan said. “That is a very slight decrease and there are a lot of factors that can attribute to that.”

McMillian said some of the factors that can help lead to a decrease include education and prevention programs.

“We have been doing a lot more education through TLC programs and drunk driving prevention programs,” he said. “We also have the golf cart that simulates drunk driving we offer to schools, as well as holiday campaigns during peak times and DWI checkpoints.

“I would say that might help benefit a decrease in those numbers.”

McMillan said for these programs to really make a difference, education and prevention both have to be present to be effective.

“Only the combination of both works,” he said. “You have to have enforcement and education to tackle it from different angles to increase public awareness and lead to culture change for less drinking and driving.”